The Nation / Nigeria: The Senate on Wednesday asked the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Engr. David Babachir Lawal, to immediately resign his position in order to face prosecution over alleged abuse of office, contract inflation and misappropriation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) funds.
The funds, the Senate said, ran into billions of Naira.
The upper chamber also asked its ad-hoc committee on the mounting humanitarian crisis in the North East to dig into alleged misappropriation of over N127 billion said to have been part of the donation for the care of IDPs.
This followed the consideration of the interim report of the ad-hoc committee presented by its Chairman, Senator Shehu Sani.
Other resolutions adopted in the report included:
- The Federal government and states in the North East should as a matter of urgency ensure that food items are adequately and promptly provided to displaced persons in order to address the prevailing malnutrition ‘observed amongst them.
- Serious efforts should be put by both Federal and state governments of the North East to provide conducive learning atmosphere for the children of the lDPs.
- The Federal Ministry of Health should be compelled to immediately deploy their personnel to all the lDPs to support the efforts of the International Humanitarian Crisis Managers and the Nigerian Air Force medical team in providing the necessary medical assistance in order to avert possible outbreak of communicable diseases like cholera, measles, and diarrhea.
- Federal and state government should intensify efforts towards reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure, rehabilitation and empowerment of the lDPs so that they can go back to their respective homes.
- The newly constituted Presidential Committee on the North East Initiative (PCNI) should ensure that there is synergy and proper coordination among all humanitarian crisis agencies if the lDPs are to gain maximally from the entire exercise.
